General Australian Politics Thread

[Candescence]

Under Abbot, Australia will be invaded and conquered by Indonesia, because that seems to be the direction this is all going in, and from what I'm reading in this thread he seems to be a bit of a Quisling character.

I dunno about Australia being conquered or even invaded, because, really, Australia does have a pretty damn good military (ever war we've gotten involved in in recent years has resulted in very few casualties on our side of things, especially Afghanistan and Iraq), and I sincerely doubt the US wouldn't get involved almost immediately if Indonesia actually threatened to invade or tried to.

[Patticus]

I dunno about Australia being conquered or even invaded, because, really, Australia does have a pretty damn good military (ever war we've gotten involved in in recent years has resulted in very few casualties on our side of things, especially Afghanistan and Iraq), and I sincerely doubt the US wouldn't get involved almost immediately if Indonesia actually threatened to invade or tried to.

 

Tongue was most definitely in cheek there...

[Candescence]

Gah, sarcasm can be hard to notice sometimes with text. And I swear that smiley wasn't there before!

 

But seriously, yeah, the idea of an invasion is just silly.

[Patticus]

I was painting a ridiculous scenario about a man who seems to exude ridiculousness from every orifice; apologies if my silliness wasn't evident. Boy I hope Aussie voters give the man the heave-ho he deserves next election.

 

Edit: What did Abbot do to put his foot in his mouth and make Indonesia threaten war?

[Candescence]

Alright, status update:

 

The government's approval rating has not been doing so well, it's had the worst 'honeymoon' of any government in decades when it comes to the polls, and there's been a lot of disaster surrounding the government's policies, especially, more recently, the National Broadband Network, which Malcom Turnbull has been trying to transition over to a 'mixed technology approach'. Let's say it's been a complete disaster so far, and put it at that.

 

However, the most interesting development lately is around the balance of power in the senate. Unlike the US, the Senate over here is composed of the Coalition as a sole majority, Labor and the Greens as a united majority, and a bunch of minor parties and independents. The next most powerful minor party in the Senate is the Palmer United Party, lead by mining magnate Clive Palmer, who basically holds most of the balance of power in the Senate right now, and he and the rest of the minors are going to be a huge thorn in the Government's side.

 

In particular, Palmer wants the Government to abandon its 'Direct Action' alternative to the Carbon Tax. However, the government wants to tie Direct Action to its next budget bill - if it fails to pass the senate, that would cause a constitutional crisis, and anyone who knows their Australian history would know how that worked out the last time it happened in 1975 (in short, Gough Whitlam got kicked out of office by the governor-general, and a huge shit-storm ensued). Palmer has outright started that his party won't support the budget bill if Direct Action is tied to it, and if it passes anyway, he'll block any attempt to repeal the Carbon and Mining taxes.

 

Oh, boy.

 

While Labor has said they won't support an attempt to block the budget, nothing is certain till the vote actually happens. Either way, if Labor, the Greens and Palmer United block the budget, the result will very likely be a trainwreck - unlike the US, there are measures in case of 'supply bills' being blocked (it's essentially a vote of no confidence in the current government), and there are major consequences for a government failing to pass a budget bill - either the government resigns and lets the opposition take over, or a double-dissolution election is called.

 

And even if the supply bill passes, Palmer will block any attempt to nix the Carbon and Mining taxes in retaliation. Meaning two of the government's biggest policies will be dead in the water until they can somehow find a majority or do as Palmer demands.

 

I'm personally intrigued by what would happen if the supply bill is blocked - the resulting trainwreck could be glorious.

[Kevin]

Hoo boy, shit will be hitting the fan if you guys have another constitutional crisis. I'm curious though, who would be elected if an election were to be called?

 

The National Broadband Network fiasco was a complete disaster! You guys had a great plan in place and unfortunately, the current government had to fuck it up.

[Candescence]

Well, the budget got revealed, and holy crap, it's awful. It's a conservative wet dream. It's an austerity nightmare.

 

However, thankfully, Labor, the Greens and Palmer United are pretty much against most of it. The fact that the budget will face a hostile senate even when the numbers change next month has made Abbot threaten a double dissolution election if any major parts of his budget are blocked by the senate.

 

Well, Bill Shorten, the opposition leader, performed a fantastic budget response speech today. And it was basically one big "fuck you right up the ass" to the government. For the first time since taking leadership of Labor, which has presented what many consider a rather underwhelming opposition (partly due to the party being shaken by multiple abrupt changes in leadership and the aftermath of both the Rudd/Gillard fight and the election), Shorten took the gloves off, and it was glorious. Joe Hockey looked uncomfortable throughout the whole thing, Chris Pyne looked like he was going to blow his top off at any moment, and I've seen people remark that even Abbot's smug prick face actually gave way to making himself look like he's thinking "oh shit" at times. They certainly didn't expect Shorten to come out swinging like that.

 

The last four minutes, basically the highlight:

 

 

The full speech:

 

 

Straight from NeoGAF:

 

[Kevin]

Holy shit did Bill Shorten deliver! I actually want a double dissolution to happen in hopes that the Liberal party is thrown out of office for trying to push through this horrible budget.

[Patticus]

An interview with Australian Treasurer following the 2014 budget release, and a gif of the opening question in case you can't/won't watch the vid:

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZNu3u4rkNU

 

I love it when politicians get grilled. It doesn't seem to me to happen, well, at all in this country, or for that matter in the UK (unless Jeremy Paxman is involved). The US and UK media are all too often spineless and come across as too thankful for simply getting an interview with any high ranking official.

 

 

Oh, and those guys are going to get slaughtered at the next election.

[Kevin]

Joe Hockey's stumbling of how to react to that opening question was just priceless, absolutely priceless!

 

 

[Kevin]

On "Last Week With John Oliver", there was a segment that took a bunch of shots at Tony Abbott. It's just pure gold!

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4carpZWlVU

 

You know things have to be really bad if an American TV show is taking shots at him.

[Candescence]

Soooooooooo... About that Carbon Tax repeal...

 

You guys should be keeping track of this country's politics more, it's a whirlwind, especially since Al Gore came on down to convince Clive Palmer to basically keep all of Labor's climate policies, by kicking the automatic transformation of the tax into an ETS early.

 

And now, because Palmer discovered that the government wouldn't put in his desired amendments to the carbon tax repeal bill, had his party vote it down. Virtually nothing else got through the upper house today. The carbon tax's repeal was supposed to be an inevitability, even The Spectator got a front page cover and article celebrating it, effectively our own Dewey Defeats Truman moment. While I am somewhat unnerved that Palmer has so much power over the country right now, as long it's being used to infuriate the Australian Tea Party, I'm pretty okay with that.

 

And all the while, Abbot's off in Japan, and proceeds to cause facepalms all round by actually mentioning World War II in a 'positive' light. Which Australia and Japan were bitter enemies in. Smooth, Tony.

 

Geez, not even US politics is this entertaining. Though, granted, it's a lot more cringeworthy for me personally, because my country is currently being run by a bunch of neoconservative idiots.

[Candescence]

RISE FROM YOUR GRAAAAAAVVVVVEEEEEEEE

But there's a reason for that, because, well, Tony Abbot's prime ministership is over. He's been replaced by Malcom Turnbull, who forced a spill and won handily, 55-45 votes. Tony didn't even last nearly as long as Kevin Rudd or Julia Gillard.

Sorta mixed feeling about this - good riddance to bad rubbish, but Turnbull will be hamstrung by the right-wing of his own party, but he might actually push Labor to replace Shorten as opposition leader, preferably with Anthony Albanese.

[Patticus]

No matter how hamstrung he is, he can't possibly be a worse leader than Abbot.

It is somewhat worrying how many leaders Australia is going through at the moment, though, but at least the bad ones are being tossed out.

[Tani Coyote]

Looking over the guy's record, yeesh. Making it harder to press for freedom of information... cutting funding for education while cutting taxes on the wealthy... opposition to same sex marriage...

Ohey so Australia really is like America. Both major parties are right wing when you plot them on a worldwide scale.

No matter how hamstrung he is, he can't possibly be a worse leader than Abbot.

It is somewhat worrying how many leaders Australia is going through at the moment, though, but at least the bad ones are being tossed out.

I understand the Presidential system has failed pretty much everywhere else, but I like the stability afforded by American politics. We have a clear leader every 4 years, and if we don't like him, we can easily neuter him halfway through his term with the House election.

 

I applaud Australia for throwing parliamentary sovereignty in the trash and having an independent court system, as well. I like having recourse when the legislature is full of dicks.

Edited September 14, 2015 by Ty the Tasmanian Ogilvie

[Kevin]

Abbott is gone! He's really gone! Yay! 

Granted, I'm skeptical about Turnbull too, but please, for the love of god may be do a hell of a lot better job than Abbott did!

[Tani Coyote]

Sounds like he's more left on environmental issues and supports gay marriage.

 

...I guess it's something?

 

I mean, it's never a proud badge to have when America is more left wing on something than you.

Edited September 15, 2015 by Ty the Tasmanian Ogilvie

[Patticus]

I'm bumping this thread up and out of the abyss it fell into because the Liberal party is up to something incredibly disturbing.

A new law has been passed in Australia, dubbed the "Border Force Protection Act", which dictates that doctors, healthcare workers, and staff at immigration detention centers (Nauru, Manus Island etc) can be imprisoned for up to two years just for reporting (not committing!) child abuse, sexual assaults or other inhumane acts that happen in these detention centers.

Quote

This puts medical professionals and those who work with children on Nauru or Manus Island in bizarre circumstances. Outside of detention centers, they're legally obligated to report child abuse. As of July 1, they can't do the same with abuse witnessed on the inside.

Refugee advocates and human rights lawyers say the legislation is a veiled attempt to silence whistleblowers from revealing human rights violations inside Australia's detention centers. And the mounting evidence of such violations makes this legislation all the more disturbing.

In October last year, Australia's Immigration Department ordered ten workers from Save The Children to leave Nauru's detention center after they alleged sexual abuse against women and children.

The ensuing independent Moss Review looked at both the allegations of sexual abuse, as well as claims from then Immigration Minister, Scott Morrison, that Save the Children's workers coached seekers to make false claims. It found evidence of the rape and sexual assault of minors and women as well as guards trading marijuana for sexual favors. There was no evidence of collusion between asylum seekers and advocates to make false claims. The findings of the review are subject to a senate enquiry which is due to report on July 31.

Similarly, February's Australian Human Rights Commission's (AHRC) report on children in detention found there were 233 recorded assaults involving children with 33 incidents of sexual assault between January 2013 and March 2014.

http://www.vice.com/read/australian-government-contractors-will-now-go-to-jail-for-reporting-detention-centre-child-abuse

What the fucking hell is wrong with the Liberal party? I mean, why would they not want an abuse problem in their country's immigration detention centers to be rectified?

Trying to cover up a culture of sexual abuse, and protect those committing the abuses. That's some next level back-ass-wards nefariousness.

[Candescence]

Aside from that literally being over a year old, it's sadly not surprising from the Libs due to going above and beyond with offshore detention polices, they are utterly determined to deter "illegal immigration" by any means, even if it means disregarding all sorts of international law in the process.

 

What is news, however, is that the recent federal election ended with the Libs hanging on by a bare majority of just one in the house of representatives. In the right capable hands, even a minority government isn't a big problem as the Gillard government showed, but on merely the first day of parliament Labor managed to completely humiliate the government by winning three votes. Entirely on procedural issues, of course, but regardless, it's something that hasn't happened in over forty years and it calls into question the government's discipline and Turnbull's ability to govern. Considering Turnbull so far has been unable to properly distinguish himself from the previous Abbot government he overthrew due to essentially being beholden to the right-wing of his own party, and the senate is even more 'rabid' than ever, Turnbull is in danger of being a do-nothing government, or worse, potentially being removed from his position in less than a year by delcons who think Abbot would've done better at the election (no he wouldn't, Abbot going to the polls would've been a bloodbath, Turnbull saved the government from outright defeat even if narrowly despite his incompetence).

[Patticus]

8 minutes ago, Candescence said:

Aside from that literally being over a year old, it's sadly not surprising from the Libs due to going above and beyond with offshore detention polices, they are utterly determined to deter "illegal immigration" by any means, even if it means disregarding all sorts of international law in the process.

Whoops! I honestly didn't notice the story's date. Oh well, it's still incredibly worrisome that Liberal party politicians seem to believe that covering up despicable and illegal abuses is preferable to, you know, ensuring humane treatment for their fellow human beings. Illegal immigration isn't just going to stop because people are held offshore, either.

Their logic isn't very logical.

[Candescence]

So, right now Australia is probably the most exciting political arena at the moment, because, well... The leadership fighting is on. Again.

Quick recap: The right-wingers in the Coalition have been agitating over the National Energy Guarantee (unfortunately acronym-ed as NEG) policy, because, well, coal fetishists. Despite initially getting the policy through the party room, threats by up to 10 ministers to cross the floor to oppose it has caused PM Malcom Turnbull to modify the policy, first changing the emissions reduction target to a regulation-based method and then dumping it entirely to focus completely on price reduction, the latter of which would never have the approval of the states. Regardless, there had been significant rumblings of a challenge from Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton.

Dutton, for the record is a former Queensland cop who is a hardcore authoritarian. He's also at severe risk of losing his own seat at the next election and possibly the least popular pick in terms of potential leader of the Liberal Party.

 

Earlier today, in an attempt to head the internal opponents off at the pass, Turnbull called a leadership spill. He won, but by 48-35. Dutton was barely 8 votes off from a proper majority.

Historically, this is bad news for Turnbull, because we've seen this shit happen before in Australian politics on both sides of the aisle, and it never ends well for the incumbent. Dutton has resigned from the cabinet, but about six other ministers are resigning as well at the time of this writing. Everyone basically expects Dutton to continue canvasing for votes and come back for a more successful round 2.

A lot of these votes are from Queensland, where 20 or so Liberal MPs are looking at electoral annihilation and are desperate to find any means of saving their skin, believing a hardline Queenslander will do the job. It doesn't help that a recent IPOS poll suddenly swung 4 points, 45-55 towards Labor, and a recent bunch of by-elections was a disaster for the Coalition, who failed to pick up any seats and even went backwards in terms of primary vote.

[Candescence]

So after a failed second push last night and a lot more resignations, Turnbull has finally put out the ultimate "put up or shut up" move in a speech earlier. In effect, he said:

1) I won't call it until I get the letter with 43 signatures (which fucks the point of the secret ballot)
2) I need the Solicitor General's advice on whether Dutton is eligible (for context it's also come out that Dutton may have some major conflict of interest stuff going on that might force him to be removed from his seat)
3) I will probably quit Parliament in the event of a spill
4) Dutton's faction are bullies and have spread a "form of madness"

He's not only called out the MPs antagonising him, and forced a public vote so those who are against him need to make their votes public, he's also effectively booby-trapping the Prime Minister's office, because at this point if there has to be a by-election you might as well call a full election, and this is a terrible time for an election as far as the government is concerned (they really don't want to have an election so close to the Victorian election where their state counterparts are in opposition, and the state opposition leader is already very angry that the shitshow in federal parliament is potentially killing his chance to be premier).

Bloody hell, Turnbull's going to blow up parliament. And his own party.

[MightyRay]

Seeing the Libs own themselves and Turnbull finally grow a spine is just amazing to watch. Bring on the election!

 

[Candescence]

Scott Morrison is the new Prime Minister, ladies and gentlemen. In a three-way contest between him, Dutton and Julie Bishop, he came out on top. As promised, Turnbull resigned from the top job when the signatures were shown to him, so he wasn't in the running.

Of course, ScoMo's no more popular than the alternatives, and this won't appease the right-wing - in fact, the right despise him for not rallying his supporters to save Tony Abbott back in 2015. I expect another insurrection at some point.

[MightyRay]

Good lord, this is even worse that the nonsense Labor went through, all that hand wringing about how they're not fit to govern and that they're backstabbers and then the Libs pull this off.

Shorten has got to be the luckiest opposition leader around, just sitting back and watching the Libs R.Y.N.O. themselves over not being 'right-wing' enough, if the Libs were smart, they'd tell the peanut gallery to STFU and then they would probably be able to pass some of their legislation through with less problems. Also shout out to the Greens Senator Richard Di Natale for calling out the Libs in damn fine fashion.